How can I achieve the following using enums in .NET? I would like to have descriptions for each value that include spaces.
public enum PersonGender { Unknown = 0, Male = 1, Female = 2, Intersex = 3, Indeterminate = 3, Non Stated = 9, Inadequately Described = 9 } I would like to be able to choose whether to use either the description or integer each time I use a value of this type.
No that's not possible, but you can attach attributes to enum members. The EnumMemberAttribute is designed exactly for the purpose you described.
public enum PersonGender { Unknown = 0, Male = 1, Female = 2, Intersex = 3, Indeterminate = 3, [EnumMember(Value = "Not Stated")] NonStated = 9, [EnumMember(Value = "Inadequately Described")] InadequatelyDescribed = 9 } For more information on how to use the EnumMemberAttribute to convert strings to enum values, see this thread.
DescriptionAttribute be used?
AttributeTargets.Field or AttributeTargets.All can be used. You can also write your own. Here are examples using DesciptionAttribute and a custom attribute.
The type or namespace name 'EnumMember' could not be found ... How does it get included in one's project? After a Google search, I found 3 results and none of them addressed the problem.System.Runtime.Serialization as a resource in my project and then put a using statement in the fileusing directive. In this case, both are System.Runtime.SerializationThis is easy. Create an extension method for your string that returns a formatted string based on your coding convention. You can use it in lots of places, not just here. This one works for camelCase and TitleCase.
public static String ToLabelFormat(this String s) { var newStr = Regex.Replace(s, "(?<=[A-Z])(?=[A-Z][a-z])", " "); newStr = Regex.Replace(newStr, "(?<=[^A-Z])(?=[A-Z])", " "); newStr = Regex.Replace(newStr, "(?<=[A-Za-z])(?=[^A-Za-z])", " "); return newStr; } 
var assembly = Assembly.LoadFrom("ResourcesLib.DLL"); var resourceManager = new ResourceManager("ResourcesLib.EnumDescriptions", assembly); var lst = Enum.GetValues(typeof(PersonGender)).Cast<PersonGender>().ToList(); foreach (var gender in lst) { Console.WriteLine(gender); // Name Console.WriteLine((int)gender); //Int Value Console.WriteLine(resourceManager.GetString(gender.ToString()));//localized Resorce } So spaces may reside in localized resource ...
